The Parthenon Enigma

by Joan Breton Connelly

  52. Lawrence, Greek and Roman Sculpture, 144.

  53. Kardara, “Glaukopis,” 119–29.

  54. Jeppesen, “Bild und Mythus an dem Parthenon.”

  55. For a reading of the frieze as a “general display of religiosity,” see Ridgway, Fifth Century Styles, 77–78; for multiple meanings, see Jenkins, Parthenon Frieze, 31–42; for the frieze as “evocation of all the ceremonies, contests, and forms of training that made up the cultural and religious life of Classical Athens,” see Pollitt, “Meaning of the Parthenon Frieze,” 63.

  56. Fehr, Becoming Good Democrats and Wives, especially 7–8, and 104–11, for the central scene on the east frieze.

  57. First presented in a talk at Bryn Mawr College (December 11, 1991) on the occasion of the retirement of Phyllis Pray Bober, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; followed by a lecture at New York University on November 21, 1992, “Parthenon and Parthenoi: A Mythological Interpretation of the Parthenon Frieze,” at the symposium “Athens: Cradle of Democracy,” held in honor of Homer A. Thompson and sponsored by the Alexander S. Onassis Center of Hellenic Studies. Later that year (December 28, 1992), I presented “The Parthenon Frieze and the Sacrifice of the Erechtheids: Reinterpreting the ‘Peplos Scene’ ” at the Archaeological Institute of America’s annual meeting in New Orleans; abstract published in AJA 97 (1993): 309–10. In 1996, I published a full treatment of the reinterpretation in “Parthenon and Parthenoi: A Mythological Interpretation of the Parthenon Frieze,” AJA 100 (1996): 53–80. See Chaniotis, “Dividing Art–Divided Art,” 43; Deacy, Athena, 117; Jouan and Van Looy, Fragments: Euripides, 95–132; Ridgway, Prayers in Stone, 201; Spivey, Understanding Greek Sculpture, 146–47.

  58. Noted by Boardman in “Another View,” 41, and in “Naked Truth.”

  59. Connelly, “Sacrifice of the Erechtheids”; Connelly, “Parthenon and Parthenoi,” 58–66.

  60. J. Barringer, “The Temple of Zeus at Olympia, Heroic Models, and the Panhellenic Sanctuary,” in Barringer, Art, Myth, and Ritual, 8–58; J. Hurwit, “Narrative Resonance in the East Pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia,” Art Bulletin 69 (1987): 6–15; Säflund, East Pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia.

  61. Schnapp, “Why Did the Greeks Need Images?” For recent scholarship on divine images, see M. Gaifman, Aniconism in Greek Antiquity (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2012); P. Eich, Gottesbild und Wahrnehmung: Studien zu Ambivalenzen früher griechischer Götterdarstellungen (ca. 800 v. Chr.–ca. 400 v. Chr.) (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2011); V. Platt, Facing the Gods: Epiphany and Representation in Graeco-Roman Art, Literature, and Religion (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2011); I. Mylonopoulos, “Divine Images Behind Bars: The Semantics of Barriers in Greek Temples,” in Current Approaches to Religion in Ancient Greece, ed. J. Wallensten and M. Haysom (Stockholm: Svenska Institutet i Athen, 2011), 269–91; I. Mylonopoulos, ed., Divine Images and Human Imaginations in Ancient Greece and Rome (Leiden: Brill, 2010); S. Bettinetti, La statua di culto nella pratica rituale greca (Bari: Levante, 2001); Lapatin, Chryselephantine Statuary; Steiner, Images in Mind; T. S. Scheer, Die Gottheit und ihr Bild: Untersuchungen zur Funktion griechischer Kultbilder in Religion und Politik (Munich: Beck, 2000); D. Damaskos, Untersuchungen zu hellenistischen Kultbildern (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1999); Donohue, Xoana; I. B. Romano, “Early Greek Cult Images and Cult Practices,” in Hägg, Marinatos, and Nordquist, Early Greek Cult Practice, 127–34.

  62. Contra Shear, “Polis and Panathenaia,” 729–61; Osborne, “Viewing and Obscuring,” 99–101.

  63. Simon, Festivals of Attica, 67; Parke, Festivals of the Athenians, 40; Mansfield, “Robe of Athena,” 291; Dillon, Girls and Women, 45–47; Marconi, “Degrees of Visibility,” 167; Neils, Parthenon Frieze, 16; Sourvinou-Inwood, Athenian Myths and Festivals, 294; Hurwit, Age of Pericles, 230, and Hurwit, Athenian Acropolis, 225, who identifies the woman as either the priestess of Athena Polias or as the basilinna.

  64. Mantis, Προβλήματα της εικονογραφίας, 28–65; Connelly, Portrait of a Priestess, 92–104.

  65. Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Antikensammlung K 104. Connelly, Portrait of a Priestess, 95–96.

  66. Mansfield, “Robe of Athena,” 291, 346; Simon, Festivals of Attica, 66; Boardman, “Another View,” 41; Mantis, Προβλήματα της εικονογραφίας, 78, 80–96. Sourvinou-Inwood, Athenian Myths and Festivals, 296, suggests that he is the priest of Zeus Polieus. Steinhart, “Die Darstellung der Praxiergidai,” 476–77, argues he is neither a priest nor the archon basileus but that he and the child are members of the Praxiergidai clan, the genos closely connected with the peplos.

  67. Robertson, Shorter History of Greek Art, 100; Connelly, “Parthenon and Parthenoi,” 60; Connelly, Portrait of a Priestess, 187ff.; Boardman and Finn, Parthenon and Its Sculptures, 222–23.

  68. Images listed by Brommer, Der Parthenonfries, 268; Mantis, Προβλήματα της εικονογραφίας, 78, 80, 82–96.

  69. Athens National Museum 772; Mantis, Προβλήματα της εικονογραφίας, plate 38a; Connelly, “Parthenon and Parthenoi,” 59, fig. 2; A. Conze, Attischen Grabreliefs (Berlin: Spemann, 1893), 197, no. 920, plate 181.

  70. Stuart and Revett, Antiquities of Athens, 2:12.

  71. Robertson and Frantz, Parthenon Frieze, 308. For Venus rings, see Boardman, “Notes on the Parthenon Frieze,” 9–10.

  72. Boardman, “Notes on the Parthenon Frieze,” 9–11. See also Boardman, “Parthenon Frieze,” 214; Boardman, “Another View,” 41; Boardman, “Naked Truth.”

  73. Those who believe the child is a boy: Fehr, Becoming Good Democrats and Wives, 104–6; J. Neils, “The Ionic Frieze,” in Neils, Parthenon, 203; Hurwit, Age of Pericles, 230; Neils, Parthenon Frieze, 168–71; Steinhart, “Die Darstellung der Praxiergidai,” 476; Jenkins, Parthenon Frieze, 35; Clairmont, “Girl or Boy?”; Harrison, “Time in the Parthenon Frieze,” 234; Simon, Festivals of Attica, 66–67; Brommer, Der Parthenonfries, 269–70n137, 264, table; Parke, Festivals of the Athenians, 41; Kardara, “Glaukopis.” Those who identify the child as a girl: Dillon, Girls and Women, 45–47; Boardman, “Closer Look,” 314–21; Connelly, “Parthenon and Parthenoi,” 60; Connelly, “Sacrifice of the Erechtheids”; J. Pedley, Greek Art and Archaeology (London: Cassell, 1992), 246; Boardman, “Naked Truth”; Stewart, Greek Sculpture, 155, 157; Boardman, “Notes on the Parthenon Frieze,” 9–10; Mansfield, “Robe of Athena,” 293–94; Boardman, “Parthenon Frieze”; Robertson and Frantz, Parthenon Frieze, 34. For a summary, see Berger and Gisler-Huwiler, Fries des Parthenon, 158–59, 172–74; Ridgway, Fifth Century Styles, 76–83; and Sourvinou-Inwood, Athenian Myth and Festivals, 284–307 and 307–11.

  74. Red-figured krater in Bari, Museo Civico 4979, ARV2 236.4, from Rutigliano. C. Bérard, “L’ordre des femmes,” in Bérard et al., La cité des images, fig. 127.

  75. Brommer, Der Parthenonfries, 269–70, sees the child as the temple boy responsible for the holy snake. See Simon, Festivals of Attica, 66; Hurwit, Age of Pericles, 230. Jenkins, Parthenon Frieze, 35, points to the example of Ion, who acts as temple servant to Apollo in Euripides’s tragedy. As a male deity Apollo would, of course, be served by male temple servants with the exception of his female prophetesses. But the idea that the virgin goddess Athena would similarly be served by a little boy is wholly out of keeping with Greek cult practice, which would demand that she, as a virgin goddess, be attended by girls and women; see Connelly, Portrait of a Priestess, 73–74.

  76. Connelly, “Parthenon and Parthenoi,” 60; Robertson, Shorter History of Greek Art, 100; Mansfield, “Robe of Athena,” 243.

  77. Connelly, Portrait of a Priestess, 39.

  78. Homer, Iliad 6.297–310; see Connelly, Portrait of a Priestess, 173.

  79. Mansfield, “Robe of Athena,” 294; Connelly, Portrait of a Priestess, 31–32, with bibliography.

  80. W. Burkert, “Kekropidensage und Arrhephoria,” Hermes 94 (1966): 1–25; Robertson, “Riddle
of the Arrephoria at Athens.”

  81. Harpokration A 239 Keaney (quoting Dinarchus, frag. VI 4 Conomis) speaks of four arrephoroi. Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.27.3, speaks of two arrephoroi.

  82. Apollodoros, Library 3.15.4.

  83. Clairmont, “Girl or Boy?”; Connelly, “Parthenon and Parthenoi,” 60–61.

  84. See A. M. Snodgrass, Narration and Allusion in Archaic Greek Art: A Lecture Delivered at New College Oxford, on 29th May, 1981 (London: Leopard’s Head Press, 1982), 5–10; N. Himmeman-Wildschutz, “Erzählung und Figur in der archaischen Kunst,” AbhMainz 2 (1967): 73–101; P. G. P. Meyboom, “Some Observations on Narration in Greek Art,” Mededelingen van het Nederlands Historisch Instituut te Rome 40 (1978): 55–82; Connelly, “Narrative and Image in Attic Vase Painting,” 107–8.

  85. Ensuring that they will be in perpetuity the brides of Hades? See M. Alexiou, The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1974), 5, 27, 39, 120. For a broader discussion of the similarities in marriage and funeral rituals, see R. Rehm, Marriage to Death: The Conflation of Marriage and Funeral Rituals in Greek Tragedy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994).

  86. Euripides, Trojan Women 309–460.

  87. Euripides, Iphigeneia at Aulis 1080–87, 1577.

  88. Aeschylus, Agamemnon 228–43.

  89. Euripides, Children of Herakles 562.

  90. Sophokles, Fr. 483 Nauck = 526 Radt. See A. C. Pearson, The Fragments of Sophocles (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1917), 167–68; A. H. Sommerstein, D. Fitzpatrick, and T. Talboy, Sophocles: Selected Fragmentary Plays, vol. 1 (London: Aris and Phillips, 2006), 81.

  91. London, British Museum 1897.7-27.2; ABV 97.27; Para. 37; Addenda2 26; LIMC 7, s.v. “Polyxena,” no. 26. Tyrrhenian amphora by the Timiades Painter, ca. 570–560 b.c.

  92. See the amphora in Viterbo showing the sacrifice of a bull held in a similar position, horizontally and high in the air: J.-L. Durand and A. Schnapp, “Boucherie sacrificielle et chasses initiatiques,” in Bérard et al., La cité des images, 55, fig. 83; Connelly, “Parthenon and Parthenoi,” 63, fig. 6. We are reminded of Aeschylus, Agamemnon 213–33, where Iphigeneia is held high like “a kid, above the altar.” A marble sarcophagus, dated ca. 520–500 B.C., found in 1994 during salvage excavations at Gümüsçay, Turkey, near the site of ancient Troy, shows the sacrifice of Polyxena in which she is held up in the same position while Neoptolemos slits her neck. See N. Sevinç, “A New Sarcophagus of Polyxena from the Salvage Excavation at Gümüsçay,” Studia Troica 6 (1996): 251–64.

  93. As Shear, “Polis and Panathenaia,” 744, and Hurwit, Athenian Acropolis, 233, would have it.

  94. Museo Archeologico Regionale di Palermo, NI 1886. Attic white-ground lekythos (500/490 B.C.). Attributed to Douris. ARV2 446.226; Addenda2 241; LIMC 5, s.v. “Iphegeneia,” no. 3.

  95. It is not until the fourth century B.C., in South Italian vase painting, that scenes of virgin sacrifice (especially of Iphigeneia) occur in significant numbers. These not only postdate the Parthenon by a century but also are highly influenced by the stagecraft of Greek theater, which, by then, had established a somewhat “standard” iconography for the subject.

  96. Stewart, Greek Sculpture, 81, 148.

  97. Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.10.6–7.

  98. See the divine family group from Brauron. L. Kahil, “Le relief des dieux du sanctuaire d’Artémis à Brauron: Essai d’interprétation,” in Eumousia: Ceramic and Iconographic Studies in Honour of Alexander Cambitoglou, ed. J.-P. Descœudres, Mediterranean Archaeology Supplement 1 (Sydney: Meditarch, 1990), 113–17. And, indeed, viewed as a royal family group, the central figures of the Parthenon east frieze may provide a further parallel to the sculptural program of the Apadana at Persepolis, where the king and crown prince appear at the very center of the relief composition; see M. C. Root, “The Parthenon Frieze and the Apadana Reliefs at Persepolis: Reassessing a Programmatic Relationship,” AJA 89 (1985): 103–20.

  99. For readings of the two girls as arrephoroi, see Sourvinou-Inwood, Athenian Myths and Festivals, 300–302 (where it is further suggested that the small child at far right may be a third arrephoros); Dillon, Girls and Women, 45–47; Neils, Parthenon Frieze, 168; Wesenberg, “Panathenäische Peplosdedikation und Arrephorie,” 151–64; H. Rühfel, Kinderleben im klassischen Athen: Bilder auf klassischen Vasen (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1984), 98; Simon, Festivals of Attica, 67; Simon, “Die Mittelszene im Ostfries,” 128; Deubner, Attische Feste, 12–13; Stuart and Revett, Antiquities of Athens, 2:12. Hurwit, Age of Pericles, 230, and Athenian Acropolis, 225, says the girls could be diphrophoroi (stool carriers) or, possibly, arrephoroi. Sourvinou-Inwood, Studies in Girls’ Transitions: Aspects of the Arkteia and Age Representation in Attic Iconography (Athens: Kardamitsa, 1988), 58–59 and 100–101n285, suggests the two girls at the left could, in fact, be a ten-year-old and her slightly younger counterpart, but neither older than eleven.

  100. See Boardman, “Parthenon Frieze,” 213, for the importance of costume as a pointer to age, and Boardman, “Another View.” For peplos as a costume worn by prepubescent girls, see Connelly, Portrait of a Priestess, 150–53.

  101. Boardman, “Parthenon Frieze,” 213; Boardman, “Closer Look,” 312–13. Wesenberg sees these objects as trays and reads the stool legs as torches; Wesenberg, “Panathenäische Peplosdedikation und Arrephorie.”

  102. Furtwängler, Meisterwerke, 427–30, where he suggests the stools are meant for Pandrosos and Ge Kourotrophos to join the Theoxenia. B. Ashmole questioned this view, allowing that, “though possible,” it “is not entirely satisfactory and a little strange”; see B. Ashmole, Architect and Sculptor in Classical Greece (New York: New York University Press, 1972), 143. See also Simon, Festivals of Attica, 68, and Simon, “Die Mittelszene im Ostfries,” 142–43. Boardman, “Closer Look,” 321, sees the two girls as diphrophoroi bringing stools.

  103. Holloway, “Archaic Acropolis,” 224, points out “the difficult problem of a divine audience in the midst of a human festival.”

  104. Vatican Museum 344; ABV 145.13; J. D. Beazley, The Development of Attic Black-Figure, rev. ed., ed. D. von Bothmer and M. B. Moore (1951; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 61. See Connelly, “Parthenon and Parthenoi,” 63. H. von Heintze, “Athena Polias am Parthenon als Ergane, Hippia, Parthenos,” Gymnasium 100 (1993): 385–418, similarly sees the bundles carried on stools by the girls on the Parthenon frieze as clothing rather than as seat cushions.

  105. Metropolitan Museum of Art 75.2.11, ARV2 1313.11; Para. 477; Addenda2 180. L. Burn, The Meidias Painter (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 98, M 12, plate 52b; Connelly, “Parthenon and Parthenoi,” 63–64.

  106. J. Scheid and J. Svenbro, Le métier de Zeus: Mythe du tissage et du tissu dans le monde gréco-romain (Paris: Errance, 1994), 26–29; Mansfield, “Robe of Athena,” 50–59; Barber, “Peplos of Athena,” 112–15; Barber, Prehistoric Textiles, 361–63.

  107. For the Shroud of Turin, see A. Nicolotti, Dal Mandylion di Edessa alla Sindone di Torino: Metamorfosi di una leggenda (Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2011); F. T. Zugibe, The Crucifixion of Jesus: A Forensic Inquiry, rev. ed. (New York: M. Evans, 2005); I. Wilson, The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence That the World’s Most Sacred Relic Is Real (New York: Free Press, 1998); H. E. Gove, Relic, Icon, or Hoax? Carbon Dating the Turin Shroud (Philadelphia: Institute of Physics, 1996).

  108. Demaratus, FGrH 42 F 4; Apollodoros, Library 3.15.4.

  109. D. B. Thompson first recognized the lion’s paw: “The Persian Spoils in Athens,” in The Aegean and the Near East: Studies Presented to Hetty Goldman on the Occasion of Her Seventy-Fifth Birthday, ed. S. S. Weinberg (Locust Valley, N.Y.: J. J. Augustin, 1956), 290.

  110. Petersen, Die Kunst des Pheidias, 247 and n1, first identified this object as a footstool. See Furtwängler, Meisterwerke, 186; followed by Jeppesen, “Bild und Mythus an dem Parthenon,” 27, 31, fig. 7; Boardman, “Another View,” 41, plat
e 16.4; Boardman, “Closer Look,” 307–12; Neils, Parthenon Frieze, 167.

  111. For interpretation of this object as an incense box, see Simon, Festivals of Attica, 67; Simon, “Die Mittelszene im Ostfries,” 141; as a jewelry box, see Connelly, “Parthenon and Parthenoi,” 64–66. For similar boxes showing lion’s paws, see E. Brummer, “Griechische Truhenbehalter,” JdI 100 (1985): 1–162.

  112. Aelius Aristides, Panathenaic Oration 87 (Lenz and Behr).

  113. Paris, Musée du Louvre CA 587. Connelly, “Parthenon and Parthenoi.”

  114. London, British Museum 1843.11-3.24; LIMC 1, s.v. “Andromeda,” nos. 3 and 17. London, British Museum E 169; ARV2 1062.1681.

  115. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 63.2663; Para. 448; LIMC 1, s.v. “Andromeda,” no. 2. See H. Hoffmann, “Some Recent Accessions,” Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts 61 (1963): 108–9, who suggests that the box represents Andromeda’s “wedding trousseau.”

  116. Neils, Parthenon Frieze, 164–66.

  117. Simon, followed by Neils, Parthenon Frieze, 189–90, sees the gods at the north side of the east frieze as having a primary connection with the sea and those at the south with the land, and further associates the Panathenaic procession with Athenian victories on land and sea during the Persian Wars. Also, J. Neils, “Reconfiguring the Gods on the Parthenon Frieze,” Art Bulletin 81 (1999): 6–20; Jeppesen, “A Fresh Approach,” 123–25; I. S. Mark, “The Gods on the East Frieze of the Parthenon,” Hesperia 53 (1984): 289–342; E. G. Pemberton, “The Gods of the East Frieze,” 114; G. W. Elderkin, “The Seated Deities of the Parthenon Frieze,” AJA 40 (1936): 92–99.

  118. J. E. Harrison, “Some Points in Dr. Furtwängler’s Theories on the Parthenon and Its Marbles,” CR 9 (1895): 91.

  119. I thank Angelos Chaniotis for making this point and for providing further references for gods turning their gaze away from certain deeds: Euripides, Iphigeneia in Tauris 1165–67; Herakleides Pontikos frag. 49 ed. Wehrli; Lykophron 984; Kallimachos frag. 35 ed. Pfeiffer; Apollodoros, Library 5.22; and Quintus Smyrnaeus 13.425–29.